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Spendthrift Farm breeding program getting attention as well as Kentucky Derby-winner producer

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Colleague Jennie Rees profiled Spendthrift Farm and its stallion Malibu Moon, the sire of Kentucky Derby winner Orb, over the weekend. In the story, Orb’s trainer and Lexington native Shug McGaughey is quoted in reverential terms for Spendthrift’s place in thoroughbred history and current owner B. Wayne Hughes’ efforts to rebuilt it.

“He’s trying to do a lot to get Spendthrift going again,” Shug McGaughey, trainer of Orb, said of Hughes. “When I was growing up, the only two farms everybody knew were Spendthrift and Claiborne Farm — the Hancocks and the Combses. They were kind of competitive against each other.”

Hughes, himself, had some thoughts on the matter in a Derby Week interview.

“It’s a good thing for Spendthrift to be sort of coming back from dark days,” Hughes said of the attention brought to the farm by two of its sires collectively producing three Derby starters. “… There’s some satisfaction there. We feel like we’re caretakers there.”

One of those three — Goldencents by Into Mischief — was bred on a forerunner of Spendthrift’s Breed Secure program that allows breeders to delay paying the stud fee until they sell the offspring and recoup some of their initial costs.

“We’re doing it to make our business better,” Hughes said.

The concept drew criticism from Hill’n'Dale Farms President John Sikura in a commentary published at The Paulick Report in March.

In essence, Sikura argues that allowing people to pay stud fees so far off is socialism, props up stallions and keeps mares in production that shouldn’t be.

“We are incentivized to produce the best yearling because the market rewards such and the consequence for not doing so are dire,” Sikura wrote. “… Paying me a stud fee in two years, if you make money, is artificial and, in my opinion, misleading commerce.”

An interesting discussion ensued on a message board at Pedigree Query.

Hughes, in statements, has argued Breed Secure is better than the foal sharing deals that have been common within the breeding industry.

In a press release earlier this year, Hughes said: “Breed Secure allows commercial breeders to breed a mare to a stallion of their choice without having any risk as it relates to the stud fee. When that breeder goes to sale, if he or she doesn’t make a reasonable profit then not a dime of the stud fee will be owed to Spendthrift. Hopefully there is a tremendous profit made at sale, and when that happens, he or she would only be responsible for paying back the stud fee and not a dime more.”

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